My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 314

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The Imposter

Katia

The crash of the wine glass still hung in the air when Delia reappeared in the doorway, her face streaked and furious, apparently unwilling to let the rest of us finish destroying her reputation without her standing there to hear every word of it.

“I’m not done,” she said, her voice raw. “You don’t get to say all of that and then let me walk out while everyone just stands here agreeing with you.”

“Nobody’s agreeing with anything,” I said. “We’re simply waiting to see if you’ll finally tell the truth.”

Jude seized the moment, stepping forward with both hands raised slightly, the posture of a man trying to physically calm a room he had lost control of several minutes ago.

“I think,” he said, “we should all take a breath. This has clearly become about old wounds between sisters, and I don’t think any of us benefit from-”

“Don’t,” I said, and turned the full weight of my attention onto him for the first time in several minutes.” Don’t you dare try to use Delia’s pain as a shield for yourself right now.”

“I’m simply trying to de-escalate-”

“You’re trying to disappear into the background before anyone asks you a question you can’t answer,” I said. “So let’s ask it now, while everyone’s still in the room. How did you know about Victor Hale’s fall?”

The room shifted again, something in the air changing entirely, Jude’s careful composure cracking visibly for the first time since dinner began.

“I told you already,” he said. “I had contacts who fed me the footage. It’s how I cleared your name.”

“Whose contacts?” I said.

“I don’t reveal sources,” he said, and the line came out far too smooth, far too rehearsed, the kind of answer a man gave when he had practiced it in a mirror.

“Convenient,” I said. “Because I had Sam pull the access logs on that footage this week. Do you know what she found, Jude? The original file was only ever accessed by two people before it reached you. Security, and one member of this family who still had clearance to that building’s system from when she lived there as Julian’s wife.”

Martha’s hand drifted up to her mouth.

David set down a glass he had only just picked back up.

“Delia,” I said, turning to my sister, “handed you that footage. Didn’t she.

“That’s not true,” Jude said quickly, too quickly, his eyes flicking toward Delia for half a second before he caught himself.

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“I didn’t ask you,” I said. “I asked her.”

Delia’s mouth opened. Nothing came out.

“You staged it,” I said, looking between the two of them now, watching the pieces finally lock into place. out loud, in front of everyone, exactly the way Sam and I had assembled them across her desk that morning. “She gave you the footage. You used it to walk in and play hero, clear my name, and earn yourself a place in this family you had absolutely no legitimate claim to. The two of you built an entire rescue out of evidence she had no right giving you.”

“Why?” Martha said, her voice barely above a whisper, looking at her eldest daughter now with something close to horror. “Why would you do that, Delia? Why would you hand a stranger evidence about your own sister’s case?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Delia said, the words coming apart even as she said them.

“Then tell us what it was like,” I said. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks exactly like a woman so desperate to punish her sister that she handed a con artist the tools to walk into this family and steal her place at the table.”

“I didn’t know what he was going to do with it,” Delia said, her voice shaking badly now. “I gave it to him because he asked, because he said it would help. I didn’t think-”

“You didn’t think,” I repeated. “You didn’t think a man you barely knew, asking for confidential evidence in a murder case involving your own sister, might have something other than good intentions.”

“Enough,” Jude said, his voice sharper now, an edge of real panic finally bleeding through the charm. ” This is exactly what I told you would happen, Delia. The moment any of this came out, she’d twist it to make you the villain instead of looking at her own behavior.”

“My behavior,” I said, turning on him fully now, “is asking the man who has been sleeping in my parents’ good graces for months, accepting their gifts, kissing their cheeks, and calling himself family exactly how he came to know about a crime scene he had no business knowing about. That’s not twisting anything, Jude. That’s simply asking the question you’ve spent this entire dinner trying very hard not to answer.”

“I answered it,” he said. “I told you. Contacts.”

“Try again,” I said. “Because I don’t think you understand yet exactly how much trouble you’re actually in tonight.”

“Are you threatening me?” Jude said, straightening, trying to summon back whatever swagger he had walked in with hours ago.

“I’m informing you,” I said. “There’s a difference. A threat is something I might do later. This is simply telling you what’s already in motion. Obtaining confidential evidence connected to an active investigation, through a private contact with no legal authority to share it, is not a gray area, Jude. It’s a crime. And right now there are exactly two people in this room who could be charged for it.

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